AVRISP II adapter to Attiny85

 

For my hobby projects  I often use Attiny85 chip . Usually first stage of the project is breadboard prototyping. But there is the problem: connecting AVRISP programmer to the chip on the breadboard is not that easy. So I made dedicated  adapter  which allows effortless connection between  AVRISP programmer and Attinny85 chip. 

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Adapter is passive: it contains nothing but headers to connect programmer and headers to connect to the chip. Apart of that added LED with resistor to indicate if power is supplied.

Adapter has two set of headers:

•  one set to connect AVRISP (on the photo on the left)
• another set to insert into breadboard on top of Attiny85 chip.

LED with resistor added for convince to be sure that power provided to the circuit. Marking on the circuit diagram below corresponds to the photo above.

Here you can see the breadboard with the microchip attached to the power.

I need just put adapter with connected AVRISP II programmer on top of microchip, connect AVRISP programmer to a computer through USB in interface, and start Atmel Studio.  Now I am ready to program.

One may ask why not to buy some breadboard ready ISP header? Indeed for less than one dollar you can get adapter kit at  Adafruit site. It is nicely made and can be used with any AVR device. But to make it work there is need to connect that adapter to a controller with six jumper wires. With my adapter I just need to snap it in place. Obviously, if I want to work with different controller (like  Atmega328), I have to make another dedicated adapter. Still I assume that benefits worth the effort.